News

A bright fireball occurred over The Netherlands on 21 September 2017 at 19:00 UTC (21:00 CEST). In addition to many individual sightings, it was also recorded by an all-sky camera dedicated to recording exactly such events. The camera is part of the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation (FRIPON) network (https://www.fripon.org), and is hosted on the roof of a building at ESA's ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Other FRIPON cameras which recorded the event were located in Lille and Brussels. The combined data will allow to the object's trajectory to be reconstructed. It is most likely that any resulting fragments – meteorites – will have fallen into the North Sea.

News

As part of an international observing campaign, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been imaged during our normal monthly observing run on 16 September with the OGS telescope in Tenerife. In the attached image one can observe the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft as the tiny point at the centre of the image moving from left to right. The larger spot moving in the same direction, but located more to the left, is main belt asteroid (50587) 2000 ET45.

Newsletter

NEOCC Newsletter: September 2017

01 September 2017

The ESA SSA-NEO Coordination Centre has released the September newsletter summarising the most relevant data and events on asteroids and comets approaching the orbit of the Earth. Please, feel free to forward it to potentially interested people.

Close Approach Fact Sheet

NEOCC Close Approach Fact Sheet: (3122) Florence

31 August 2017

The ESA SSA-NEO Coordination Centre has released a Close Approach Fact Sheet (CAFS) for asteroid (3122) Florence, passing by Earth on 1 September. Please, feel free to forward it to potentially interested people.